environment

The criticisms of Earth Hour are quite scathing and I generally agree with many of them. Still, might as well try to do something. Despite the slacktivistic nature of Earth Hour, choosing to observe it in a genuine fashion can be difficult within even the most progressive communities, and thus, damn near impossible in a […]

Back when I was an undergrad, one of the geeky rages at the time was running SETI@home on your desktop (since everyone had desktops back then). SETI@home was one of the distributed computing pioneers which allowed one to use their PC’s idle time to analyze packets of radio signal data in search of signs of […]

I picked up a copy of Alan Weisman’s The World Without Us from Indigo’s books under $10 table. I’m not sure what a book has to do to be heaved onto the $10 table…perhaps this is where former “International Bestsellers” go to spend their twilight years…next to the the Chicken Soup for the Atheist books. […]

As an Ontario newb, I generally have no idea what is going on in this province and this ignorance presents a rather large liability when studying a profession that is heavily weighted towards local examples. Take for example an upcoming presentation I am giving on Ontario’s latest sexed up regional ‘smart-growth’ plan. The region in […]

I’m currently munching my way through a multiculturalism planning paper so I’m a bit empty headed regarding posting concerns but I think I might post the paper when I’m finished as it is not very long and reads more as a narrative story rather than an essay. Some interesting things from this week: The Canadian […]

Edward Burtynsky (Manufactured Landscapes) was at Queen’s this evening and presented a number of his photos and discussed his goals in seeking out and visually documenting the world’s industrial landscapes. Unlike his documentary, he presentation didn’t focus on China and including more recent work in the Alberta Tar Sands…he also spoke quite a bit more […]

It would appear that the Chinese government remains confident regarding the price and uninterrupted supply of oil…as well as very bullish about future airline passenger numbers. China drafted a long-term plan for development of air cargo, which will require the building of 97 new airports, consolidation of smaller airports and upgrading of certain key airports […]

I pulled this off the Planetizen blog (Click to enlarge). So where are you? One gallon is approximately 2.78 liters. My bike is really cool. …actually, I don’t have a bike…but I would say that if I did.

My latest geeky addition to my already over-worked and desperately-waiting-retirement computer. Pretty sleek, huh? Back when I was doing my undergrad the hip thing circulating geek-dom was participating in distributed computer networks with the most popular one being SETI@home. Basically the network required one to download a small program which would then analyze small packets […]

On June 1st, thin plastic bags (with a thickness of less that .025mm) were banned in China and bag-charging has been implemented for all PVC bags. Prices appear to range from .3 to 1RMB per bag, depending on the size. I was aware of this ban last week but I was curious about how it […]

After several weeks of lecturing regarding the financial and time benefits of utilizing the Nanjing transit system, I managed to convince a friend to step on one of the buses….and the verdict is…”Ah, it wasn’t that bad!”Exactly. It never will cease to amaze me how few foreigners take advantage of this system and rely completely […]

I wrote little regarding the recent increase in Chinese nationalism and noticeable rise in anti-western sentiments last month, but to paraphrase my feelings, I continue to be very suspicious and concerned regarding some components of this nationalism, the fenqing (angry youth) and what some bloggers have cleverly described as the Red Guard 2.0 (a play […]